


Timing

by wellmet



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Gen, Implied/Referenced Domestic Violence
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-16
Updated: 2019-02-16
Packaged: 2019-10-29 08:41:26
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,234
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17804762
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/wellmet/pseuds/wellmet
Summary: When Mrs Watson is killed by her husband (domestic violence but not graphic) Det Lestrade is in charge of the investigation but John becomes a shape changer.  Just a short snippet.





	Timing

**Author's Note:**

> What happens when John's mother is killed by his father. Domestic violence but not too graphic. Just a short snippet.

TIMING  
by Meretseger 2018

I woke up one morning with the paragraph that starts this story right there in my mind. So I just had to write a story that began with it. 

 

John Watson often wondered, when he was grown much older, what his live would have been like if the vampires and shape-shifters had not come out of the closet a month before his father killed his mother.

The Prime Minister's press conference where she announced the existence of vampires and shape-shifters in the United Kingdom was one of those, 'where were you when …' moments. It was replayed hundreds of times over the next few days on television, radio and social media sites. It was soon on the television in Europe and the United States, Africa spread it by smart phone and Asia watched it on lap-tops. The Middle East debated the news in mosques and synagogues, the USA in churches and bars. Everybody, everywhere had an opinion and, apart from a few defiant conservatives, nobody seemed to be really angry or worried by the revelation. 

The PM had chosen the representatives of the two communities with care and had put vampires and shape-changers on the LGBTQI list of people not to be hassled for their life style. The police were kept busy for a while defending the right to be non-human but most people were more interested in whether vampires could see themselves in mirrors or if shape-shifters lost their clothes when they shifted than harassing them. 

Interesting though John found the news, even his father had stayed sober long enough to watch, his main concern was his knowledge that his family was falling apart due to his father's alcoholism. He realised that he was lucky that his father was a sullen drunk rather than a violent or argumentative one but life in the house that had seemed so warm and happy a few years ago had become fraught and tense. The once good that came out of the fact that Peter Hamish Watson sat mindlessly in front of the television every night and got falling down drunk was that John, confining himself to his bedroom, started doing his homework properly. There wasn't much else to do when you didn't have your own television and only the simplest mobile phone so he did it to stave off the boredom or read a book from the school library. As a consequence all his teachers had told him that, if he continued the good work, he would be able to go to university. If he could decide what he wanted to study. 

John could never be sure how long the status would have stayed quo but an accident at work ratcheted up the tension in the house. Peter, who was a master electrician, worked for a company that had won the contract to strip a wing of the local hospital back to brick, and cement so it could be upgraded. As a long-time and trusted employee Watson senior was put in charge of the gang that stripped the valuable old copper wiring out of the walls and was responsible for recording and packing the wires into lockable plastic boxes for transport to the recycling centre. Since his hands had begun to shake due to the excessive amounts of alchahol he was drinking this was a lucky break for Watson, if he had been putting in new wiring his inability to work properly would soon have become noticeable. But then there was an accident - some one using a power tool nearly died of blood loss when he cut off part of his hand. When it was later found that the victim was drunk the company introduced mandatory and random drug and alchahol testing. Dianne Watson, John's mother, was worried about her husband being found out and losing his job and Peter's assurance that, since he was supervising and not using power tools, he would not be tested did not comfort her.

When the inevitable finally happened and Peter was tested and found to be at least four times over the legal driving limit he was fired on the spot and sent home in a taxi.  
Mary Watson was upset and worried, her husband angry and humiliated - the argument led to violence and a kitchen knife being plunged time and again into her throat and chest. Hearing the screams and yells John called the police.

The neighbours of number fifty two were all out on the street to watch the police cars arrive, lights and music, then an ambulance ditto. Uniformed officers swarmed through the house, John and his sister Harriette (Harry she always insisted) were taken to the ambulance and wrapped in warm blankets and Mrs Hooper next door offered hot tea and took them into her place while the body was removed.

Detective Constable Lestrade was sent to the scene but there was little doubt about Peter's guilt, in fact he made a tearful confession, and he was taken away to be formally charged, arrested and put in the cells. Lestrade ran his hands through his thick dark hair, half convinced that his job would make him go grey before his time, and went to talk to the two children of the house. That was when, he later averred, that he got his first grey hair. 

John was just very lucky that Mrs Hooper was a member of a large and scattered family that had the shape-shifting gene so that, when, under the over-whelming stress of the murder of his mother by his father, John shifted into his other shape Mrs Hooper just smiled and rubbed his ears. Harry went into hysterics and when Lestrade entered the living room he stopped by the door, not sure what to do. Mrs Hooper calmly asked him to make more tea and went on soothing John who was shaking and frightened by what had happened to him and telling Harry to stop carrying on like a banshee.

When Lestrade came back into the living room with the tea tray Harry was sitting at one end of the sofa with her hands pressed to her mouth, as if she that was the only way she could stay silent. John, at the other end of the sofa, was pale and shaking and looking down at his hands as if he wasn't sure what shape they should be. 

Lestrade had had time to think while he was in the kitchen but he had spent all the time he was there trying to remember what he had learnt when he did the course on shape-shifters and vampires - and failing remember a word.

Mrs Hooper took charge of the tea pot and handed out sweet tea to the youngsters, white no sugar to the policeman and white with lots of sugar for herself. She settled down in her chair and waited until tea worked its magic before speaking.

"I think it best if the children stay with me, detective. John will have questions for me and Harry will be better with John. Isn't that so dear?"

Harry nodded reluctantly. She did want to stay close to John but … he'd changed and Mrs Hooper said she could, too. Her world had been shaken and she really didn't know what she wanted. But she would be alone with … well, John and Mrs Hooper and who knew what she would turn into at night!


End file.
